Why shouldn’t it be? Israel pays hundreds
of millions to the PA in advance. What about the arrears due Israel for
supplying electricity? After doing all this for humanitarian reasons, do we
expect them to be grateful? They hate us from the bottom of their
hearts.

Have the European nations ever checked the PA accounts for fraud
and mishandling of funds? What about the super luxury cars and buildings? Their
debts are practically in the billions of dollars.

When is Israel ever
going to learn? Let’s stop being so gracious and kindhearted to the PA – you’ll
never know when it will stab you in the back. We should never forget that
charity begins at home.

N.E. SAMUELYavne

Long memory

Sir, – We have
received an assurance from Alan Dershowitz relative to US President Barack
Obama’s support for Israel vis a vis the Iranian threat (“Ross, Dershowitz
confident Obama has Israel’s back on Iran,” September 21).

Let me say up
front that I have great respect for Dershowitz, whom I regard as a patriotic
American, a superb legal mind, an outstanding Jew and an unquestionable
supporter of Israel. Nevertheless, I vividly recall his support of and
friendship for former president Jimmy Carter, and his later public admission of
having been mistaken in his assessment.

Sir, – I am very relieved to see that Zatmi Ali
tells us that Islam is a religion of “love” (“Jerusalem judge denies temporary
injunction to block anti-Islam video,” September 21). I am sure that the
families of Sunni Muslims killed by Shi’ite Muslims, and Shi’ite Muslims killed
by Sunni Muslims, as well as Christians and Jews killed by both of them, are
most comforted.

However, Ali spoils it by saying that anyone who says
“anything bad about Muhammad” should have his “tongue cut out” – with love, of
course.

ISIDORE SOLOMONSBeit Shemesh

Sir, – If a person disagrees with
the laws of Islam because Shari’a Law for women is cruel and tortuous, that is
freedom of speech.

But if there are cartoons depicting Muhammad as a
homosexual, a child abuser and many more disgusting lies, I put it in the same
category as what happened in Germany when the daily cartoon in the newspaper
depicted a Jew with an enormous nose, beady eyes, slobbering from the mouth and
vermin crawling all over him.

These cartoons helped fan the flames of
anti-Semitism.

I am with those who demonstrate against what is being done
against the prophet. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

YVONNE
NARUNSKYKfar Shmaryahu

We owe it to them

Sir, – I read with interest “Crisis of
identity” (Frontlines, September 21) and would like to point out that the State
of Israel uses as criteria under the Law of Return that anyone who is
one-quarter Jewish (i.e., has one Jewish grandparent) or is married legally to a
Jew can be considered for the purpose of aliya.

There is currently a
problem in relation to the Bnei Anusim (Marranos or Secret Jews) who are “coming
out of the closet” in many areas of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world.
Many regard themselves as Jews and want to reunite with their people, but are
not accepted as Jews by the Chief Rabbinate and consequently are denied
residence in Israel under the Law of Return.

This is a terrible
inconsistency.

Some of these people have adhered to their Jewish identity
for 500 years under the most oppressive of circumstances. We owe it to them that
they be allowed to make aliya at least under the same conditions as olim from
the former Soviet Union and other minority groups, such as the Bnei Israel from
India, Ethiopian Jews and the Falash Mura.

JACK COHENNetanya

Faustian
quandary

Sir, – With regard to Martin Sherman’s “The humanitarian approach:
Responding to readers – Part I” (Into the Fray, September 21), it seems to me
that to offer financial incentives and subsequent voluntary emigration is the
best that can be achieved in this tragically Faustian quandary.

Does
anyone out there have a more workable solution? If they do, I haven’t heard
about it.

MALCOLM DASHZichron Ya’acov

A place to go

Sir, – Yoram Dori
(“The Jewish refugee issue,” Observations, September 21) is contradicting
himself in the definition of a refugee. He states himself that a refugee is one
that was “forced to flee from his homeland....”

There is no doubt that
Jews were forced to flee their original homelands because of persecution. The
fact that they had a chosen destination – Israel – doesn’t negate the fact that
they were refugees and should be compensated for their losses.

Any
refugee goes to some other place when he leaves his home.

The fact that
Jewish refugees came to Israel should not be held against them. Thank God they
had a place to go to.

URI HIRSCHNetanya

What he’ll say

Sir, – Ben Caspit
(“Preparing for the day after,” Observations, September 21) says it is clear to
everyone that US President Barack Obama will win reelection.

The fact is,
some agree he will and some are sure he won’t, but few have Caspit’s
confidence.

If Obama doesn’t win, which will Caspit say: “I was wrong” or
‘Everyone was wrong?”

ISRAEL PICKHOLTZJerusalem

Poor coverage

Sir, – It was
extremely disappointing to find that your September 19 paper had no report about
Rosh Hashana in Israel as one of the most solemn periods of the Jewish year. The
few paragraphs about visits to parks and nature reserves (“280,000 visit parks
on Rosh Hashana,” News in Brief) were a travesty of proper coverage of the
occasion.

BERNARD GOLDBLUMJerusalem

Apostles of humanity

Sir, – During a
recent stay abroad, I witnessed numerous round-table discussions on German TV
and radio in which self-righteous, so-called humanist Germans were lecturing and
pontificating about the inhumanity of male circumcision, accusing Jews (and
Muslims) of, among other things, gross child abuse, irreversible mutilation and
causing terrible anguish. This, from a people whose parents and grandparents
willingly murdered, tortured and gassed infants, babies, children, adolescents,
adults, the aged and infirm, by the millions.

These are today’s apostles
of humanity, with barely a mention of their horrific past or a hint of humility,
sensitivity or indirect responsibility for the barbarism of their immediate
forebears.

Seen from this perspective and having witnessed the outrageous
claims, hypocritical benevolence and impudent lectures on ethics in the German
media, the well-meant and politically correct contribution by the German
ambassador to Israel (“Circumcision in Germany,” Comment & Features,
September 12) did little to improve the situation.

Instead, it reaffirmed
a much more sinister phenomenon, namely that to the German people the Holocaust
of only six decades ago is nothing but an unfortunate, largely forgotten episode
that has little if anything to do with the present generation.